Friend of the blog, Cliff Blau, sent along a nice article about David Reid that appeared in the Official Record of September 3, 1885. The article appears to have been largely based upon one that appeared in the Clipper on December 2, 1882, but was updated to note Reid's death. The image also appears to be the same one that appeared in the Clipper but is a much nicer version and, therefore, is worth sharing.

Reid, of course, was a newspaper man and sports writer in St. Louis, who worked for the St. Louis Times, Republic, and Post-Dispatch. Before moving to St. Louis, he also wrote for various newspapers in New York and Philadelphia. For a time, in the early 1880s, he was the secretary for the St. Louis Browns. He was an interesting guy, with many friends in the baseball fraternity, who died suddenly, at the young age of 37, on May 2, 1885.

Last week someone in the comments asked if I had the box score for game two of the 1885 world's championship series and I had to admit that I did not. When I originally went through the game accounts of that series, the sources that I was using didn't publish the box score and, while I believed that I had seen one in Sporting Life at some later point, I failed to grab it.

Why wouldn't I have the box score to this game? Why wouldn't it have appeared in sources that carried the box scores for the other games in the series? There is a simple reason for that.

Game two was the forfeit.

Kelly quickly stole second, took third on a wild pitch, and scored on a single to center by Anson. Pfeffer raised a fly to short right and Nicol muffed it, but threw Anson out at second, while Pfeffer secured his base. After Pfeffer had stolen second Williamson hit a slow grounder along the line to first. The ball was spinning as it traveled, and when near first base it reached the outside of the base line it struck the edge of the turf and turned so sharply inside the line that Comiskey failed to stop, and it struck the inside of the bag and ran a short distance beyond it. Meanwhile somebody shouted "Foul!" Pfeffer ran in from second and Williamson, after hesitating when the ball was outside the line, made a dash when it changed its course and reached first in safety. Comiskey claimed that the ball was foul, Sullivan insisted that it was fair, but Comiskey said it was not under American Association rules, to which Anson answered by calling for the rules. Another squabble was followed by Comiskey calling his men off the field. There was a rush of spectators into the field and while one crowd gathered around Anson, Superintendent Solari and a special officer escorted Sullivan off the field, a second crowd following them to the gate and abusing Sullivan at every step.

By leaving the field Comiskey made a serious blunder, for the rules made it the imperative duty of the umpire to declare the game forfeited, and while the act caused the home team the irretrievable loss of a game that they had a chance to win, it also gave to the backers of the Chicago Club considerable money that was wagered on the result. Under all rules the ball was a fair one, and the umpire was in no way to blame for the deceptive course it took. It was generally believed that Sullivan had called the ball "foul," but this he denies, and is supported in his denial by Robinson, the home catcher, who asserted that it was Anson who made the call in question; but even if he had declared it "foul" before it had passed inside the line, he would have been obliged to correct his decision and declare "fair."

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 16, 1885

So the game officially went into the books as a 9-0 victory for the Chicagos and everything in the box score is kind of irrelevant. It is, of course, interesting from a historical point of view and as a record of what actually happened but it was still a forfeit.

​This box score, which I'm happy to share with you, comes from Sporting Life of October 21, 1885.

​I feel that it's my role in this life to collect every single quote that I can find proclaiming the greatness of Fred Dunlap. Luckily, these quotes exist in abundance. As we wrap up Fred Dunlap Month, I'm going to share a few of them with you:

Second bag was guarded by Fred Dunlap, who was a wonderful fielder...Fred Dunlap was at one time, I refer to his engagement at Cleveland before he came to Detroit, the best second baseman in the country.​-Ned Hanlon, quoted in Sporting Life, September 11, 1897

What a ball player this Dunlap was…

Dunlap was a real infielder of the type so popular ten years ago, one of the solid bulky style through whom no grounder seemed able to pass, but who could nevertheless wave the hot ones goodbye with graceful ease when occasion demanded. With the gloves now in use to aid, Dunny would have been even a bigger wonder now than then. He was showy, yet effective. He averaged up quite well with the two other kings of second base in those days, Pheffer and McPhee.​-Sporting Life, December 27, 1902

Fred Dunlap. This famous second baseman...Dunlap is the king of second baseman, and a first-class all-round player.

-Sporting Life, 1887, Volume 10, Number 4

Charley Sweasey, Al Reach, Jimmy Wood, Ross Barnes, John Burdock and Fred Dunlap were the great second basemen of the past...​-Boston Daily Globe, November 1, 1891

...(Seeking) facts from the old sports who have seen the rise and fall of baseball players for nearly fifty years, it is surprising upon how few points these old experienced men agree. But his difference of opinion serves to show that these old fans have formed opinions of their own and have not blindly followed the lead of others.

Hence, when a very large majority of those ardent followers of the game, who live as fully on the bleachers today as they ever did in the days of their youth, who watch the fine points of the game as keenly and as critically as ever, and who give their judgment of the relative merits of players of this year impartially and justly-when these men agree that any individual was the one greatest player that the game has ever known, the historian of the game must give great weight to their opinions.

If this is to be one's guide in deciding what second baseman was the greatest in the history of the game, one is forced to say that the honor belongs to Fred Dunlap. And as one seeks to verify this almost universal high estimate of Dunlap's skill and searches the professional record of this idol of the old fans, there is much to justify the enthusiastic praise, even in the cold-blooded official records.

...If ever there was a scientific baseball player it was Fred Dunlap.

In fact, he knew nothing else but the game for which he had neglected everything, himself included, and his quickness of action and the sureness of his throwing were surpassed only by the alertness of his mind and the accuracy of his judgment. He caught equally well with both hands and could put the ball on a player sliding to second as well with his left as with his right hand. The great suppleness of his splendidly developed body and his prodigious and unsuspected strength enabled Dunlap to cover an area around second that, in the opinion of men who have seen them all, has never been equaled.

-Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1911

Fred Dunlap was in the '80's one of the great players of the National League, sharing with Fred Pfeffer the honor of being the star second baseman of the profession. ​-Sporting Life, December 13, 1902

​Al Spink called Dunlap "far and away the greatest second baseman that ever lived" and said that "of the great players of the olden times Fred Dunlap was considered by many the greatest." "(None of his contemporaries) could begin to compare with Dunlap in all around work or in covering the bag," he wrote in The National Game.

Spink is not a lone voice in the wilderness. Stanley Robinson called Dunlap the greatest second baseman of his time and "perhaps the greatest player that ever lived." James Spaulding called Dunlap "the greatest second baseman who ever lived." Al Bauer, in 1886, called Dunlap "the best baseball player on the diamond." The Sporting News, at the same time, called Dunlap "the king pin of second basemen and the greatest fielder in America."

This testimony, of course, is not hard evidence that Dunlap was the best second baseman of his era but it is not nothing. Contemporary opinion does have some impact on how we evaluate players. There is value in the fact that a lot of people watched Dunlap play and decided that he was better than Hardy Richardson or Bid McPhee or Ross Barnes. Again, that's not to say that he was better than those guys - who were all great ballplayers (and I'm sure we can put together a list of quotes like this for all of those guys) - but Al Spink and Stanley Robinson saw those guys play. We didn't. So, yes, we have a lot of tools at our disposal that we can use to evaluate a player's value but it is important to take into account contemporary opinion.

The Troy Times in comparing Ferguson's record with that of Dunlap, says:

"The chronic grumblers who so strenuously urged a short time ago that Mr. Ferguson, Troy's second baseman and manager, was played out-too old for active service and unable to control his men-have changed their minds, and well they might do so. Comparing Mr. Ferguson's record with that of Dunlap, who is claimed to be the best second baseman in the country, it is found that Ferguson excels him at every point..."​-Brooklyn Eagle, August 16, 1880

​This has to be one of the earliest reference to Dunlap as the best second baseman in the country. It's certainly the earliest that I've seen. While the article goes on to compare Bob Ferguson to Dunlap, the important thing is not whether or not Ferguson was better than Dunlap but that Ferguson was being compared to the young Dunlap. Fred Dunlap was the standard to which all other second baseman were held. Even years after his playing days were over, baseball writers were still comparing young second basemen to Dunlap.

I think it was Bill James who wrote about Satchel Paige and said that all Negro League pitchers were compared to him. This pitcher or that pitcher was as good as Paige or better than Paige or was faster than Paige; the point being not that these men were better than Paige but that Paige was the standard to which all other Negro League pitchers were held. Paige was, most likely, the best pitcher in the history of the Negro Leagues and it was natural to hold him up as the standard. The same seems to be true of Dunlap. While Dunlap may or may not be the best 19th century second baseman, he was for some time the best second baseman in the game and, in 1883 and 1884, the best player in the game. There are many people who saw him play and believed that he was the best player of all-time and his play set a standard for second basemen that lasted until the days of Nap Lajoie.

When the late Fred Dunlap was in his prime, he was generally referred to as the king of second baseman; yet his claim to that title was always disputed. As a matter of fact there were at least two men covering the same position whose respective followers claimed that their particular favorite was the only real king. Fred Pfeffer, of the Chicagos, and Bid McPhee, of the Cincinnati (Association) Reds, were the men who divided the honors with Dunlap. Burdock, of the Bostons; Lew Bierbauer, of the Athletics (although the latter was a comparatively kid player at the time), and Yank Robinson, of the St. Louis Browns, also had their admirers, who thought them just as good as the others. To-day there can be no question about the premiership of second base. Lajoie is first in a class by himself.

Dunlap was undoubtedly one of the most finished players that ever handled a ball. In ease of action, Lajoie and Collins are the only men playing to-day who approach him. He handled a ball "clean" and rarely fumbled or missed it on the first attempt. How accurate his eye for distance must have been is best shown by the fact that in all the years he played ball he never broke a finger or had a knuckle out of place. But for the muscularity of his hands he could have been taken for a billiard rather than a base ball expert. Nobody better knew the points of the game and no one exercised more skill and audacity in working them. He was unusually successful in working the "trapped ball" trick before that play was legislated out of existence, and in conjunction with Briody he seemed to have all the other second basemen beaten in heading at the plate a runner who tried to score from third on another runner's attempt to steal second. He never lost sight of the runner third and if he saw the latter was only making a bluff of running home, he rarely missed the man running to second. In working a double play from short to second to first, the writer has seen Dunlap stop a poor throw with his left hand, and with the same motion throw the ball into his right, and then fire it up to first in time to head his man. Dunlap was only a mediocre batsman, but he was a good inside man at that. He was a hard man to pitch to and got more than his allowance of bases on balls. He was a splendid man on the bases when a run was needed but took no chances when there was no necessity to do so. He made it a point to run everything out and never lost sight of the ball. he always overran first and turned on a base hit, and if the fielder made the slightest miscue the chances are that "Dunny" would make second.

But Dunlap's claims to distinction in base ball were not confined to his ability as a player. He will probably be remembered longer as the player who blazed the road to high salaries. He is said to have received as high as $7000 in one season from Pittsburg and it was his boast that he never lost a penny on a contract. As a boy he had comparatively few educational advantages, but he did possess a big stock of sound horse sense. He always had his contract drawn up by a lawyer of his own selection and no amount of persuasion could induce him to change his practice. When he retired permanently from the game in about 1901, Dunlap was supposed to be worth about $35,000. For five or six years he was a familiar sight about town, always looking as though he had just emerged from a bandbox. Always taking out and never putting in, Dunny's roll began to diminish. Finally he went broke. Too proud to let his wants be known even to his friends, he was almost lost sight of until by the merest accident one of his old-time friends learned of his condition and secured him a room in St. Agnes' Hospital. He was beyond all human aid, and died three weeks later.

-Philadelphia Inquirer, December 8, 1902

I really haven't said a whole lot of positive things about Dunlap during Fred Dunlap Month but, in my defense, the man's flaws are much more interesting to me than his skills as a baseball player, which were extraordinary.

Yes, I'm having a bit of fun poking at Dunlap's character but don't let that blind you to the fact that he was, arguably, the best player in the League in 1883. He was the best second baseman in the League in the early part of the 1880s and then had that monster year in the UA. The man was a great ballplayer and, ironically, that monster year in that joke of a league has kind of blinded us to his true value.

A lot of folks have spent a lot of time pointing out, correctly, that the UA was a joke and that Dunlap's 1884 season has to be seen in that context. Put 1990 Barry Bonds in the Frontier League and he was going to put up some unbelievable numbers also. That's all true and I don't have any argument with it but I think the analytical quest to put 19th century leagues in their proper context has had a derogatory effect upon our analysis of the totality of Dunlap's career and has blinded us to the greatness of his play in the early 1880s.

The Union Association uses a lively ball, and as a result its batsmen will make more long hits than the League and American Association players, and also more muffs of flies and grounders. The increased elasticity, which will cause it to go faster and farther from the bat than a dead ball, will cause it to be more difficult for fielders to handle.​-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, April 20, 1884

A lively ball, small ballparks, a lower level of competition and the best player in the game. I think that's a nice recipe for a monster season.

Fred Dunlap took one look around him in the spring of 1884 and said the following: "I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you." Yeah, that was Dunlap. Or Genghis Khan. Can't remember.

Ted Sullivan was released from the management of the St. Louis Unions last night. Ill-feeling between Sullivan and some of the players had existed for some time.​-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 14, 1884

Anybody want to speculate about which players had "ill-feelings" towards Sullivan?

*Cough* Dunlap *Cough*

Not that Sullivan was a saint or anything but how does the manager get fired when the club is 28-3? I have to image that it would have something to do with the highest paid player in all of baseball going to the owner and saying something along the lines of "It's him or me." But thinking about it a little bit, I can also imagine Sullivan going to Lucas and saying something similar about Dunlap. Those two guys were serious pieces of work and it's impossible to say who was the bigger a**hole. At the moment, I'm leaning slightly towards the idea that Sullivan got himself fired but, really, it's a pick 'em.

Honestly, I feel kind of bad for Henry Lucas. He was just a guy who loved the game and had the resources to start his own team and league. That's a noble thing. But he made some bad decisions and got saddled with these two j*rk-*ffs.

Dunlap, Dave Rowe and Shafer have driven Ted Sullivan out of the St. Louis Unions, and as he is on the black list his lot is not a happy one.​​-Cleveland Herald, June 18, 1884

​Well...

You kind of have to take anything the Herald says about the UA or Dunlap with a grain of salt. But this is the best piece of evidence we have about what went down between Sullivan and his players.

Regardless, Sullivan would land on his feet and be back in baseball, with the Kansas City Unions, in July. And thinking about that fact, that Sullivan would get another job in Lucas' UA, leads me to believe that it really was the players, rather than Sullivan, who instigated the whole thing.

It was the universal opinion among St. Louis base ball enthusiasts yesterday that Mr. Lucas never took a better step in the right direction for the good of his club than in releasing Dunlap, whose sale to the Detroit Club was announced exclusively in the Globe-Democrat yesterday morning. By many of the Maroons' devoted admirers the news was hailed with genuine delight, and the prediction that the club would now be almost certain to do better could be heard everywhere. While Dunlap's ability as a great second baseman was never for a moment questioned, and while he is justly entitled to be called the "king of them all," there is but little doubt that his departure from the St. Louis Club is a good thing for the club and its owners. Dunlap's ways are too well known to the base ball public of St. Louis to necessitate any comment. He played well when he wanted to, and when he didn't he was the most aggravating and wretched player on the team. He wanted everything his own way, and when crossed made it disagreeable for everybody around him. As the captain of the club the players looked to him for advice and instruction, and what he said usually went with them, and it was always noticed that when it was an "off" day for Dunlap the rest of the club usually followed in his wake, and played as poorly as they knew how. Dunlap's off-days usually came when the manager and owner of the club insisted upon having a world to say as to how the nine should be run.

Speaking of the matter, Mr. Lucas said to a Globe-Democrat reporter yesterday: "I am heartily-in fact, really happy-that Dunlap has gone, and I think that the club will get along much better without him. I was in favor of letting him go at the end of last season but Manager Schmelz insisted on keeping him, and it was only through the latter that I consented to have him remain on the team. Mr. Schmelz had an idea that he could get along with Dunlap, but I never thought so. No manager can get along with him unless he allows him to do just as he likes. He has always been the disturbing element in the club, and every trouble that has arisen among the players can be traced directly or indirectly to him. My opinion of him, however, as a ball player has never been changed since he has been associated with the club. I think he has no equal in his position, and but for his ways I would ask for a no better man. Neither did I like his bulldozing tactics on the field. I like to see kicking, and I think it pays; but Dunlap didn't kick as other captains did. He would raise a big row over the most trivial occurrences. I do not approve of this policy. I like to see a man stand up for his rights, but I believe in doing it in a gentlemanly way. Another thing that made matters worse was Dunlap's eager desire to leave the club. He was dissatisfied all the time. I had a good offer to send him to Detroit, and get some money back that I have spent on him, and so I decided to let him go. I am entirely satisfied with the deal, and I know he is, so there will be no regrets on either side."​-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 8, 1886

I think we all know that Dunlap was a difficult character to deal with but I don't think I've ever read a harsher description of him. I'm sure the whole thing is an attempt to justify his sale to the fans but it also has a ring of truth to it. The fact of the matter is that the King of Second Basemen was a bit of a jerk.

Henry Lucas returned from the East yesterday morning, looking hearty and cheerful, and expressing perfect satisfaction over the results of his trip. In the afternoon a Globe-Democrat reporter had an interview with him and obtained the following story of his work for the new ball club while away:

"...After signing Rowe I went back to New York, where I closed a contract with Dunlap. Rowe brought him there to meet me, at my request."

-St. Louis Globe-Democrat, November 25, 1883

This is the earliest reference I have to Dunlap signing with the Maroons. It would be mentioned, with details regarding the contract, in both the Cleveland Herald and the New York Times on November 28, 1883.

Dave Rowe and the American Association St. Louis Club are fighting. Mr. Von der Ahe claims that Rowe agreed to sign with his club, but when the contract and advance money were sent to him, he returned them and signed with the Lucas Club. Of the latter fact there is no doubt, but the fight has caused Mr. Lucas to publish Rowe's telegrams to him. In one of them Rowe refers to a "good man" that he can secure, and in another that he had contracts awaiting him from Cleveland, Providence and the St. Louis American Association Club. This shows that Rowe has used tricks. He never had a contract from Cleveland in his possession. The "good man" was evidently Dunlap.

-Cleveland Herald, November 29, 1883

So, for the record, it looks like Dave Rowe was the one who recommended that Lucas sign Dunlap.